1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the control of screen savers for personal computers (PCs) and, more particularly, to an intelligent screen saver which is only switched on when the user of the computer is away from the computer for a predetermined period of time.
2. Background Description
A screen saver is a computer utility that causes the screen of the computer display to blank out or display a certain image after a predetermined amount of time passes without the keyboard being touched or the mouse being moved. Touching the keyboard or moving the mouse deactivates the screen saver. Originally, screen savers were used to prevent images from becoming permanently etched in the screen of cathode ray tube (CRT) computer monitors commonly used with desk top computers. For portable laptop computers, blanking the screen by a screen saver conserves battery power.
Currently, computers use a time indicator to control the screen saver. If a person using the computer does not touch the keyboard and/or move the mouse for a certain period of time, the screen saver turns on. This is not convenient because sometimes the person is still looking at the screen and working. In order to turn the screen saver off, the user must touch a key or move the mouse.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an intelligent screen saver utility that is less obtrusive than conventional screen savers.
According to the invention, there is provided a screen saver utility based on the absence of an operator rather than a predetermined time period for activation and detects the presence of the operator for deactivation. The screen saver is totally transparent in use to the operator and requires no touching of the keyboard or mouse movement to either prevent activation or deactivation of the screen saver.
The invention requires a camera that can grab images. The images are grabbed and temporarily stored in the computer memory. When the difference between successively grabbed images is big enough, a person""s presence is detected. When there is no big difference between successive images during a given time period, a person""s absence is detected. The presence status is used to control the status of the screen saver.